“We’ll be celebrating our first year as a community, and we’ve had almost 5,000 members join.”

Jen Leban

Online Community Manager

Back in 2009, Jen Leban was a lonely art teacher with a brand new Twitter account. It wasn’t long until she connected with an entire world of other educators just like her who shared the same joys and struggles. They posted their latest classroom projects, memes, and even pictures of their own art. But by 2023, Jen couldn’t deny how differently she felt about logging on.

“I finally had to go through the grieving process that Twitter was no longer what it used to be,” she says. “I closed my account, but I was also like, ‘I'm risking losing all these connections.’ But it made me feel so bad to use it. It wasn’t worth it anymore.”

Jen didn’t know where to go next, but she knew there had to be a better way to connect. Then, as if they read her mind, The Art of Education had decided to start an online community for art instructors, especially those who had participated in their professional development courses.

“This opportunity came up to run the community, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, so this thing is going to exist and I can help shape it? Yes, please sign me up,” she recalls. “This is like a dream job. And I'm not just saying that. I really love this. It’s the best.”

A big reason why Jen loves her new job? Because she manages The Art of Ed Community with Mighty Networks.

“Teaching art can be extremely lonely, especially if you're the only person teaching it in your building,” Jen says. “And now social media is just up in flames. So it's like, ‘Where's everybody going?’ And the answer is here. This is where we all are.”

The Art of Education team had picked Mighty Networks for their community before Jen joined to manage it, but when she learned more about Mighty’s features, she knew they had made the right choice. Jen says there were three non-negotiables that the team wanted from a new platform. First, they wanted to seamlessly integrate with their existing systems, including HubSpot and Zapier. Next, they needed an interface that would be easy enough for anyone to use — after all, teachers don’t have tons of extra time to learn yet another new program. And finally, they wanted an app so their members could have easy access to the community and their content.

“Right now, our theme for the month is advocacy,” Jen explains. “We have a YouTube channel, a podcast, and a huge archive of articles to pull from. Without Mighty Networks, when people ask questions, we can direct people towards our evergreen materials, too, like our article, ‘What you need to know as a first-year art teacher.’”

Jen and her team launched The Art of Ed Community during their virtual conference, and immediately, 400 people joined. Soon after, they implemented Mighty Networks’ Ambassador Program so their members could refer other teachers to join. Now, they have 6,000 members just a year later.

When Mighty Networks releases a new feature in beta, more often than not, Jen’s name is on the list to try it. So it’s no surprise that the Art of Ed Community has been thoughtfully designed with spaces that foster both professional and personal connections. But before that, Jen knew she needed to build a distraction-free, uncluttered space to entice potential members to join their new community instead of sticking with familiar social media channels. So she created a Welcome Checklist that would first verify that members were teachers employed by a school district or institution. When they’re verified, new members are directed to an introductory course to set them up for success.

“It’s called Community 101, and it teaches people how to get the most out of the community,” Jen explains. “It asks them, ‘What are your goals?’ ‘Why are you here?’ and ‘What do you want to get out of this?’ Then we show them how to make a post, find upcoming events, and how to DM somebody. At the end, they get a badge. We love the badges.”

Once members have completed the Welcome Checklist, they can see the main discussion feed called The Teachers Lounge and dive into more specific spaces for their grade level (“It’s a place for sparking ideas like, ‘Hey, who's got a fresh idea for teaching clay? I'm sick of doing pinch pots’”). They can also check out The Art of Education’s resources and share their own personal artwork in The Art Gallery.

For Jen, one of the most rewarding parts of launching an online community has been watching the in-person effects from workshops and events. She recently hosted a representative from Canva for their Art Club meeting on Zoom, and several members translated the project into a classroom activity for her students. And this year, at the National Art Education Association convention, Jen passed out physical membership cards to people who signed up to join the community at their booth.

“We opened up a separate discussion space for people who were going to the convention, but we were able to make it private so people in the Teachers Lounge who couldn’t go weren’t getting bombarded and feeling FOMO,” Jen says.

It might seem smaller, but the ways teachers can buoy each other in what can be rough working environments are just as impactful. Because members feel like they can be vulnerable in the safety Mighty Networks provides, Jen sees that they can help each other in more profound ways than they could on Twitter.

“We had a discussion about teaching schedules and somebody who was a new teacher said, ‘I don't have time between classes to prepare and I don't know what to do,’” Jen says. “Everyone shared these real, workable solutions. The fact that they can say, ‘You're not imagining these things’ is so validating. That’s a powerful part of the community,